


Thanksgiving with the Wayne-Kents

by BuckinghamAlice



Series: Spending Holidays with the SuperBats [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, Gen, I'm just gonna start writing something for every holiday, M/M, Slice of Life, Thanksgiving, because it's my life to ruin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-26
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-02 17:21:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1059514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuckinghamAlice/pseuds/BuckinghamAlice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thanksgiving with a big, blended family of superheroes is complicated... and things get even more complicated when Clark and Bruce decide to cook the dinner together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thanksgiving with the Wayne-Kents

The fact that Bruce liked to sleep plastered to Clark's side, and often with his arms around him, was something he'd never admit. It was one of Clark's favorite things about sharing a bed with him... and it was usually wonderful. But right now, Thanksgiving morning, Bruce was draped over Clark and holding him down when he had what sounded like an emergency to tend to.

He heard pots and pans crashing in the kitchen.

He knew this would happen. Too many cooks.

Holidays had been... complicated... since they had started spending them all together. But that was a part of marriage, right? Dealing with in-laws and step-kids and making endless compromises about how things should and would be done. But he had predicted that they wouldn't know complicated until they saw his mother and Alfred trying to cook a Thanksgiving dinner together in the same kitchen.

"But your mother won't have to cook," Bruce had reasoned. "She'll be a guest."

"Have you met my mother?" Clark had asked. "She'll insist on cooking, or at least helping."

Bruce had shaken his head. "Alfred doesn't like anyone in his kitchen when he's cooking, especially if it's a big meal."

"I know," Clark had said with a nod. "That's why Thanksgiving is going to be an interesting day."

Clark glanced at the clock on his bedside table – just after six AM, and it was already starting. He gently tried to shift Bruce off of him so as not to wake him. Bruce had had a long patrol the night before so he hadn't even been in bed two hours. He had fallen asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. Clark got out of bed and drew his bathrobe on over his plaid pajamas and attempted to sneak away, but his husband was too light a sleeper for that.

"Where are you going?" he asked in his heavy, sleepy voice.

"I heard a little commotion in the kitchen," Clark began. "I'm just going to go see if I need to do damage control."

Bruce sighed and sat up. "Okay. I'll come with you."

"No, no," Clark said softly. "You need your sleep."

"I'm not going to be able to fall back asleep if you go downstairs," he said, yawning and stretching. "And don't you say a word."

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Clark responded with a smile. He grabbed his glasses from the bedside table and put them on as Bruce’s feet hit the floor and searched around for his slippers.

Clark offered Bruce his hand, and he reluctantly took it. They hurried down to the very large kitchen that was in no way big enough to house Alfred Pennyworth and Martha Kent, now that they had both shifted into feast day mode.

There was the turkey, a big twenty pound one, in the pan on the kitchen counter. Alfred and Martha each stood on one side of it.

“Morning, you two,” Clark said pleasantly.

“It would be foolish to come down here and assume there was no trouble in here, wouldn’t it?” Bruce asked.

“No trouble, sir,” Alfred assured him. “I was just insisting that Mrs. Kent continue to rest as this is her vacation. I’m perfectly capable of preparing the dinner myself.”

Martha laughed. “Oh, Mr. Pennyworth, I never said you weren’t! I just thought I might as well help you, rather sitting around doing nothing.”

“Ma, that isn’t really necessary,” Clark said, putting his arm around his mother’s shoulder.

“Well, I think it’s very nice of Martha to offer, and…” Bruce began.

But his husband cut him off. “…But it isn’t necessary. Because _we’re_ going to cook.”

“We who?” Bruce asked, eyebrow cocked.

“Master Clark, I do believe _that_ is the very definition of ‘not necessary,’” Alfred said, giving him a withering look.

“Sure it’s necessary,” Clark answered quickly. Then, looking to Bruce and giving him a look that plainly said _you will have such a dry spell if you don’t back me up right now_ , he added, “Alfred, you deserve to have a day off to relax. It’s Thanksgiving… let us do something for you… to show how thankful we are for everything you do for us. And Ma, it’s your vacation, so take the day off. Please, just relax. You don’t need to work here, too.”

“That’s right,” Bruce said, rather unconvincingly. “We insist.”

It wasn’t easy to get Alfred and Martha to agree to leave the two of them in the kitchen – alone with all that food that needed to feed the whole family – but they both did eventually agree. And then, the two men were alone… with all that food. Food that _they_ now had to cook.

“You’re insane,” Bruce said calmly.

“Well, dear, what was I supposed to do?” Clark asked. “That was only going to get worse. And… now things will be calm.”

“Yeah, until all those hungry kids start demanding turkey, which is likely to be burnt on the outside and still frozen in the middle,” Bruce said, crossing his arms. “Then, my dearest, you will reevaluate what _is_ calm and what isn’t.”

“How would that even happen?” Clark asked, glancing at the turkey.

“I don’t know, Clark,” Bruce replied. “Because _I_ have never cooked a turkey, let alone an entire Thanksgiving dinner.”

Clark crossed his arms and stared at the turkey and then at his husband. Two thoughts crossed his mind: how quickly (and how well) he could cook it with heat vision and how much Bruce would disapprove of that.

“Okay, here’s what we do,” Clark began. “There are at least a dozen cookbooks in here… one of them must be able to tell us how to properly cook this turkey.”

“And while you look through them, I’m going to go get my laptop and look it up online,” Bruce said. “And probably have the damn thing finished by the time you settle on a recipe.”

Clark rolled his eyes but figured his husband had a point. Instead, he shifted his focus to one of the other dishes. He glanced over to the bookshelf and found a very old, red leather bound book entitled _365 Days of Bread_. He flipped to a recipe for cornbread. He was gathering ingredients, the book open in his hand, by the time Bruce came back with his laptop open.

“It says we should cook it for about fifteen to thirty minutes a pound,” Bruce began. “I don’t really like that they give such a big range. Let’s just settle on four hours now. And we might want to…” His voice trailed off as his eyes fell on his husband.

“What?” Clark asked, glancing up at him. “What’s the matter?”

“That book,” Bruce said. “That… was my mother’s.”

“Oh,” Clark said, quickly slamming it shut and biting his lip, brows furrowed apologetically. “I’m sorry… I didn’t think…”

“No,” Bruce said, waving his hand dismissively. “It’s fine. Really.” Clark gave him a little smile and he smiled back softly. “So… did you find what you needed?”

Clark nodded. “Uh, yeah. Cornbread… for the stuffing.”

“Stuffing,” Bruce repeated. Then, his eyes lit slightly, and he said, “You know, we ought to make a plan.”

“You always say we should make a plan,” Clark groused.

“And have I been wrong yet?” Bruce asked.

“Yes, and on more than one occasion,” his husband replied.

“Well, I’m not wrong now,” Bruce said in exasperation. “Because almost all of the food we have to make needs to be baked, and we have one oven.”

Bruce made a spreadsheet of when all the dishes should be in and out of the oven and what temperature the oven would need to be set to for everything to be finished in time. The cornbread had to be in and out first because they needed it for the stuffing. Then turkey and stuffing (some of which would be inside and some of which be one the side), the yams, the rolls, and the green bean casserole would all have their time.

“Do we really need mashed potatoes if we’re having yams?” Bruce asked.

“Yes,” Clark said, unintentionally sounding rather wounded. “I love the mashed potatoes.” Then, wrinkling his nose, he asked, “But is the green bean casserole necessary?”

“It’s Tim’s favorite,” Bruce replied. Clark nodded.

“And the dessert…” Bruce began.

“Oh, my God,” Clark exclaimed. “We still have to make dessert.”

“Alfred made four pumpkin pies and at least three apple pies yesterday and your mother brought two sheet cakes as well as about five dozen shortbread cookies,” Bruce sighed. “Dessert is covered. I was going to ask if you thought we should warm the pies. Calm down.”

Clark did not calm down. Neither did Bruce, for that matter.

At nine o’clock, the kids began to wake up. Kara was the first to come downstairs. She wanted to watch Clark and Bruce become more and more flustered, but she was shooed away, grabbing an apple as she left. Cass was next, shortly followed by Jason.

“You two are cooking?” Jason asked incredulously. “We’re gonna fucking starve, aren’t we? I knew I shouldn’t have come to this crypt.” Then, looking to his sister, he asked, “So what do you think? Should we order the pizza now, or wait until after the parade?” Cass giggled and Bruce shot them both an impatient look.

“Go away, Jason,” Bruce said.

“Oh, so it’s all, ’Go away, Jason,’ but no ‘Go away, Cassandra,’” Jason said. “Right, I see how it is.” Bruce groaned and rolled his eyes as Cass grabbed Jason by the sleeve and pulled him out of the kitchen. Not long after that, Tim and Conner came downstairs together, letting go of each other’s hands as soon as they thought they might be seen. The dads considered commenting on the fact that they weren’t nearly as sneaky as they thought, but there really wasn’t enough time left in the day to open that can of worms. Grinning, Conner ripped into the bag of marshmallows that was sitting on the counter, waiting to dot the tops of the candied yams, and grabbed a handful of them.

“Would you stop that?” Clark scolded lightly. Conner smiled and popped a marshmallow in his mouth.

As Tim and Conner went to the front room to camp out on the couch and with the other siblings, Dick entered the kitchen, yawning and wrinkling his nose. “There is no good reason for the two of you to be in this kitchen today,” he said. “Please tell me you’re just seeking a little quiet… you’re not…”

“Cooking the whole dinner,” Bruce supplied. “We are.”

“Why?” he asked, grabbing a box of Cap’n Crunch from the cupboard and eating a handful of it dry.

Clark sighed. “I just thought Alfred and my mom deserved to rest today.”

“So you decided that the biggest meal of the year was the right time to kick the actual cooks out of the kitchen and give your culinary skills a workout?” Dick asked. His father and step-father shared a sigh and he nodded. “Hey, B… the Macy’s parade is starting soon… do you think I should wake Damian so he can watch with us?”

Bruce snorted a laugh. “If you think that’s wise, be my guest.” But luckily, no one had to wake Damian. A few moments later, the child in question entered the kitchen and watched with round, curious eyes as Clark made cranberry sauce from actual cranberries (which he and Bruce had both been surprised to find was the way both Alfred and Martha did it… which seemed strange when you could get it in a can at the grocery store for like a dollar).

“Why do we need cranberries?” Damian asked. “It seems a bit arbitrary. Who decided that that berry, of all the berries around, should be a part of a turkey dinner?”

Clark shrugged. “Tradition.”

“It’s a silly tradition,” Damian commented, reaching for one of Martha Kent’s shortbread cookies. His father caught him and batted his hand away.

“No cookies,” Bruce said. “And you won’t ask any more questions about why we have cranberries when you have one of Alfred’s turkey and cranberry sandwiches for lunch tomorrow.”

Damian scowled and looked longingly at the cookies. “I’m hungry.”

“And dinner will be served surprisingly soon,” Bruce replied. “Trust me. Everyone eats early on Thanksgiving. You’ll survive.” Then Bruce turned to put the yams in the oven and Clark snuck Damian two cookies and nodded for him to leave the kitchen.

Bruce sighed. “You’re entirely too indulgent with him.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Clark replied, picking up a brown and serve roll and taking a bite.

“You’ve got the classic step-parent complex,” Bruce said. “You’d give him whatever he asked for in the hopes of getting him to love you.”

Clark furrowed his brows. “That’s what you think I’m doing?”

“It _is_ what you’re doing,” Bruce replied. “But… there are worse things…”

“He still hates me, you know,” Clark said with a sigh. “I just… I don’t know. I don’t want him to hate me.”

Bruce took Clark’s hand and gave him a brief but encouraging smile. “He doesn’t hate you. But he’s a kid… he doesn’t quite understand his place in the family with the new dynamics, so it’s easier to act like he hates you. But he does have a certain fondness for you… he’s just loathe to admit it.”

“I guess that runs in the family,” Clark commented. “It’s like pulling teeth to get a little affection from you Waynes.”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “Yet you manage just fine.” Clark smiled and kissed him, their first kiss of the day, and they both breathed a little sigh of relief at the fact that they didn’t get interrupted. They didn’t often get to have these moments when the house was so full.

By the time Clark and Bruce were able to go and sit down with the rest of the family, the parade was half over.

“When do we eat?” Conner asked.

“It isn’t even noon, son,” Jonathan commented.

“Yes, I’d wager it will be some time before the dinner is ready,” Alfred added.

“It’ll be soon,” Clark reassured the boy.

“After _Miracle on 34th Street_?” Kara asked.

Tim shook his head. “They aren’t showing it this year.”

“What?” Dick asked. “How can they…do that? They can’t just not show it.” He grabbed the remote and checked the program guide to find that Tim was right.

“But it’s tradition,” Kara protested.

“What’s _Miracle on 34th Street_?” Cass asked.

“One of the best Christmas movies ever,” Dick said.

“It’s pretty good,” Jason commented. Then he had to amend, “For something so corny and old-fashioned.”

Damian raised an eyebrow. “Why would we want to watch a Christmas movie on Thanksgiving? What is it with you and watching Christmas movies on every other holiday?”

“It’s kind of a Thanksgiving movie, too,” Tim explained. “They always used to show it after the parade because the woman in the movie ran the parade.”

Conner sighed. “But Cass and Damian have never seen it. Sucks that they aren’t showing it.”

“I’m sure we have it in the DVD library,” Bruce commented. “One of you guys go look for it and we can watch it after the parade.” Dick and Cass ran off to the DVD library and searched for the movie and didn’t return victorious for almost ten minutes. But as soon as the parade ended, they chose to skip the Westminster Dog Show (much to Damian’s chagrin) and pop the movie in. Damian scoffed at the “senile old man and crowd of enabling ‘friends’” but Cass liked the movie almost as much as Dick and Kara.

Bruce had timed things perfectly so that dinner would be served right around the time the movie ended. But the plan he had made, with the spreadsheet he had printed and tacked to the refrigerator, had been abandoned almost as soon as he had made it. Because he hadn’t counted on Clark saying they needed to make corn on the cob.

“Is corn even a Thanksgiving thing?” Bruce had asked.

Clark had sighed and given him a pitying look. “In Kansas, it is.”

But dinner luckily had not been delayed long, and though several of the children had threatened to starve to death, everyone survived. The cooks received many compliments on how everything looked and smelled as they all took their seats around the table. Bruce and Clark gave Jonathan the honor of carving the turkey and Clark had to wish that he had never seen _National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation_ , because he half expected nothing but a puff of smoke to come out of the turkey once it was cut.

But that didn’t happen.

The dinner turned out just fine. Everyone was happy with the food, and Alfred and Martha even gave their reluctant compliments.

Bruce fell asleep before dessert was served. He woke up some time later, in his and Clark’s bed, and sat up, rubbing sleep and confusion from his eyes. He couldn’t believe Clark had not only let him fall asleep but also carried him to bed. He was grumbling to himself and getting up when the door opened and Clark came in, carrying two saucers with slices of pie on them.

“I figured you’d be waking up about now,” he said. “Thought you might like to have a little dessert.”

“Why didn’t you wake me instead of bringing me up here?” Bruce demanded.

Clark shrugged. “You needed your rest.” He handed one of the saucers to Bruce. “Here. I thought you might like pumpkin. I took apple… but we can trade if you prefer.”

“This is fine,” Bruce said, annoyance fading slightly.

“You’re welcome,” Clark replied, smiling. Then after a few bites, he said, “You know, I think this was pretty successful… for our first Thanksgiving dinner.”

Bruce nodded. “I suppose. But that doesn’t mean we need to make a regular thing of doing that. Next year we should just let Alfred and your mother duke it out.”

Clark laughed. “Maybe we will.” He gave Bruce a little smile and fed him a bite of his apple pie. Bruce scowled at him, but he ate the bite of apple pie and allowed Clark to steal of bite of his pumpkin pie.

“Do you know what I wish we had done?” Clark asked suddenly. “I wish we had gone around the table and said what we’re thankful for.”

“And what would you have said if we had?” Bruce asked.

“Couldn’t you guess?” Clark countered with a smile.

Bruce smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Humor me.”

Clark took his hand and smiled. “I’m thankful for you… our family and the life we’ve got here together.”

“I see,” Bruce replied.

“And you?” Clark asked, squeezing his husband’s hand.

“I’m thankful no one besides me was here to hear you say something so… mushy and romantic,” Bruce scoffed. And Clark smiled because he understood that in Bruce’s own way he had just expressed the same sentiment. And that was all that mattered.


End file.
